Edamame

The farm share included a sheaf of edamame two weeks ago. I’ve
served them at two gatherings, and was surprised by how many people
had never heard of them, or if they had heard of them, couldn’t
remember enough of how they were spelled to pronounce the name
anything like right. So I figured I should tell you about
them.

They’re soybeans that are picked still green. The pods of the
ones I had were fuzzy — someone in the band claimed to have had
them with smooth pods, but nobody else remembered them that way.
I’ve only ever had them already shelled until now.

One enjoyable feature of this farm share item was that they
came on the stalk — that is, the farm saved labor costs by just
cutting off the plants and putting them in the box, and I took the
beans off the plants and put them in a bowl. I did this while
chatting with a friend who was picking up some items that she
could use better than I could, so it wasn’t time-consuming.

I put a little water in the bowl, and microwaved the pods for
about 4 minutes, and then served them after band rehearsal last
Tuesday. It’s pretty good finger food if you aren’t really
hungry and just want something to nibble on, but they really
taste better with some flavoring. I put out sesame oil and soy
sauce, but nobody felt like shelling enough at once to put on a
plate and put sauce on them, so we just ate them straight out of
the pods.

There were still a lot left, and my plan was to shell them into
the salad I made for the cookout I went to yesterday. I went
through all the vegetables in my refrigerator and put at least
some of most of the ones that are edible raw into the salad
bowl. I’d had a dozen ears of corn last week, and cooked them
all and eaten all but three, so I cut the kernels off the cobs
and put that in the salad too.

By the time I’d done all that, it was time to leave for the
cookout, so I decided to take the edamame with me in the pods
and maybe people would just eat them while we waited for the
charcoal to cook the meat, or maybe someone else would want to
shell them.

Everybody had a few, but then went back to munching on potato
chips, but one person volunteered to shell them for the salad,
so we got some in there, and they were good with the dressing.

I think there are still a fair number left, but they’re at the
house where the cookout was.

If you want to try them and don’t have a farm that sells them,
some supermarkets (Trader Joe’s that I know of for sure) have
them in the frozen foods section.